Shop Safely this Season

I love shopping online. Go to my favorite stores, search out what I need, and have it mailed to my home. Even better when you're shopping for someone else - they'll gift wrap and mail it for you! No post office trip needed!
What's not so great are the inevitable scams and phishing attempts that happen online. These are something you can count on, like rain in Seattle, and they're something you can handle easily by remembering a few easy pointers.

Key points for online shopping:

• Read the URL - if it doesn't start with "https://", you shouldn't enter any financial or personal information.


• Your financial organizations will never ask you to 'click a link' and log in to deal with any issue. If you receive such an email, open a new browser window, go to your financial institutions website, and check for issues. Contact your bank if you have any concerns at all.


• Read the privacy policy for the websites you use. By using the website, you may be signing up for more than you expect: marketing emails, usage tracking, and storage of your financial information for later use.


• Your Attorney General is your resource for scams and fraud. Visit your Attorney General's website or call them, if you have any questions or concerns.


• Kick off your online shopping season by making sure your computers are protected. Follow the guidelines recommended by your operating system manufacturor (for most of you, that's Windows), and by your anti-virus/computer security.

Reminders for offline shopping

• Look into fraud protection for your credit/bank cards.


• Keep your shopping bags in the trunk where criminals won't see and be tempted.


• Review your purchase history online and verify that charges are appropriate. Follow-up immediately with your financial institution if anything looks amiss.


• Park close to the mall, in well-lit area, and don't be shy about asking for an escort to your car after dark.


• Roads may be bad - take appropriate precautions, and make sure you dress for the weather: Layers! You can leave them in the car, but you'll want them if you get stuck some where.

Think your child is being abused?

It's not enough to know that your child is being abused - you need to take steps to make sure the 'evidence' is credible and gets to the right group of people.

1. Keep a notebook of dates, times, and instances that warranted concern. Start at the first occurance of something that seemed wrong or inappropriate, and note down everything from that point forward. If there seems to be a correlation between phone calls, unaccompanied visits, or play dates, make a note of those too.
2. Be as factual and non-accusatory as possible. Your job is to advocate for your child, and it is important to convey facts, not emotion and angst.
3. If you believe that a crime has been committed against your child, it is your right and your obligation to seek assistance from the police. Do them a favor and provide as much information as possible, which is why your notebook and your factual communication are so important. If you have reports from your child's counselor or pediatrician, take that along as well.
4. Make sure your child knows -
• That you love them no matter what, always & forever
• That they won't get in trouble for something an adult or older kid does
• That they have the right to feel safe, to have their private areas left alone, and to ask for help
5. Share stories with your child about events that happened to you that made you feel ashamed, scared, vulnerable, and alone, and talk about how you received help.
6. If there is a related divorce taking place, acquire the services of a Guardian ad litem, or similar, to be the voice of your child in court.

You can learn more at CommunityWatch.us. Good luck to you and your child/ren.

Barring RSOs from attending Church

Banning RSOs from attending Church in North Carolina

What is the expected, constructive result of legislation banning RSOs from attending church? Even from banning RSOs from being within 300 feet of any location that has the primary purpose of dealing with minors - What is the expected goal?

The fact is that the US is tagging a lot of people as RSOs, and they do have to live somewhere. You cannot reasonably expect them to live outside a 300-1000 foot range of every church, preschool, day care, public school, bus stop, or private school in any given city, town, or unincorporated area. What that would bring you would be a lot of unstable, homeless, RSOs living under bridges or in their car, parked in the lot near the local playground.

Many areas have Community Protection Zones that intelligently prohibit level 3 offenders (the most predatory, with a very high risk of re-offense) from living within a certain distance of, for instance, public schools.

This idea of "Not in my back yard" is not a good idea. You're not doing your community a favor by trying to force RSOs to live 'elsewhere.' There is no 'elsewhere' - someone is going to have to deal with the issue, and by passing these laws, people are essentially foisting the issue onto someone else, likely someone who doesn't have the means to monitor the safety of their kids/community as effectively.

Please remember- the vast majority of sexual assaults are not committed by RSOs - they're committed by uncaught, unidentified offenders who have established positions in your community. Teach your kids to be safe and they'll be safe just about anywhere, whether RSOs are allowed in the same church or not.

Testimony on Behalf of WA SB 5832

Last year, our membership told us that the Statutes of Limitation for Child Sexual Assault was a priority for them. We were told that they (SOL on CSA) were too complicated, they weren’t long enough, they weren’t fair, and they weren’t realistic.

We spent a considerable number of hours over March and April of 2008 learning enough to form a reasonable opinion. We spoke with social workers who work with child victims, memory researchers, psychologist child trauma specialists, law school teachers, police officers, legislators, adult survivors of CSA, and defense lawyers. We went out and learned, and came back and worked through it all, and formed an opinion.

What do we know?

We know that, according to the DOJ, in 2007 67% of all reported sex crimes were committed upon minors. 14% of all reported sex crimes were committed upon children under 6. The Crimes against Children Research Center has stated that the crime is likely very under-reported.

We know that most victims of CSA were abused by their father or a close male authority figure.

We know that victims of CSA are raised in dysfunctional environments, often with more issues than just the CSA.

We know that predators work to create an environment where kids tolerate and/or accept the abuse, because of threats or training.

We know that children who are abused by one person are much more likely to be abused by another person. It’s called polyvictimization, and it’s something dealt with by foster kids, and by children who have been trained to think that sexual exploitation is normal.

We know that these children often feel tremendous shame for what was done to them, and what they want more than anything else is to feel safe and secured from the constant risk that is their life.

We know that these children are likely to have issues with authority, to be self-destructive, to have post traumatic stress disorder, to tolerate abuse because abuse and love aren’t dissimilar to them.

We know that therapy, depending on the age of onset, duration, and extremity of abuse, may take two years or 20 years to achieve a ‘healthy’ emotional balance.

And we expect them to overcome all of this in the three years between 18 and 21?

The Statutes of Limitations, as they stand, are not just. They do not serve justice.

The current SOL on CSA are not reasonable. SB 5832 shows reason. SB 5832 provides more time to achieve economic independence, social independence, and therapy, so that the child may mature and safely report.

For our community, for the children of our community, we ask you to move SB 5832 forward. We ask you to actively support SB 5832 as it makes its way through the house and is signed into law.

Reporting & Statutes of Limitation

In many states, there is no Statute of Limitation [SOL] on Childhood Sexual Assault [CSA]. In fact, a few states don't have SOL for any sexual assault, and some states don't have any SOL for any felonies, period!

Every state is different, and the framers made that possible on purpose. In WA, we have a 3 year SOL on almost everything. Right or wrong, that's the way it is right now.

Nothing says we can't work to change that, however.

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Surprisingly, Victim Advocates in WA are not in support of removing the SOL from CSA. Very few groups are in support of it, in fact. Wash-CAP thinks that it wouldn't be a bad thing, but that it's not a total fix for victims of CSA.

To get that opinion, we interviewed researchers at UW, victims, and prosecutors. If anyone wants more details, email me.

So, we came up with a compromise, and have started working on consensus for it:

When we came up with the idea, we were discussing what specific issues victims need addressed. We determined that victims may need

• to know that they’re not ‘allowing’ the predator to commit more crimes due to their lack of reporting,
• to know that they’ve sought justice for themselves, and
• to speak out against their abuser

We’re not victim’s advocates, so that list may not have the proper terminology or be a complete list. However, it did allow us to come up with the proposed compromise:

1. SOL be extended to 25 y/o for all felony CSA.
   This is for the following reasons:
   >The majority of abuse takes place within the home, and in the majority of cases the abuser is in direct control of the child and is also the person paying for the child’s car, college, etc.
   >The extension allows the child time to find therapy [free therapy in college without risk of mandatory reporting], complete college/trade school, and establish financial and social independence from the abusive environment.


2. Victims would be able to submit affidavits detailing the facts of the abuse as they remember it. Those affidavits would
   >Be held by law enforcement
   >Be “searchable” by law enforcement [databased]
   >Be admissible in court
   >Have no SOL


3. The accused would be notified of the affidavit and would be able to provide a response.

We leave it to the wisdom of the legislature as to whether these affidavits would be accessible to the public. Perhaps the facts of the affidavit, but not the identifying information.

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We're open to suggestions and opinions.

Two cents: creating an environment conducive to reporting.

When I started working on this project [CAP], I knew not to use stranger danger, and I knew why, but I made a lot of other mistakes. Sometimes I still think certain things, briefly, without saying them out loud, and sometimes I hear things from others.

Things like, "That person is just evil/a monster," or, "If anyone ever hurt my child like that, I/my husband would kill them!"

Here's the point of the post:

Whether or not evil exists is a fascinating conversation. The existance of this type of abuse, and the extremes to which it can be carried, may indicate the existance of evil; I don't know. But child abusers themselves are not evil. They're sick, they're twisted, they have chemical imbalances coupled with weak characters and poor impulse control... but they're not evil.

When we call them 'evil' or [to a lesser extent] 'monsters', we're creating a mystery around them and making them seem even scarier than they are. When a child hears a parent talking about abusers that way, the kid is thinking that, no matter what the parent says, there's not a thing mom or dad can do about the evil guy, that you're not big enough or mean enough to deal with monsters. There's a good chance that the child is going to try and protect his/her parents from the evil monsters by not telling the parent what's happening.

The same thing holds true for statements involving 'killing' those who abuse our kids. Personally, I think my head might explode from wanting to, but I've learned not to say it because - as one of my children pointed out to me [ouch] - if I kill that person, then I'll be in jail, and they won't have me as a parent.

The unifying theme to both these points: The reality of child abuse is so overwhelmingly and explosively emotional that neutral and calm language is necessary in order to help ensure that the facts get shared. If the worst happens and a child is abused or assaulted, the child needs to know that the parent/trusted adult is able to safeguard them from more harm, and to handle the information without getting arrested. Otherwise, they may be more willing to tolerate further abuse than to potentially worsen the situation by having their parents in danger or in jail. Sounds horrific, but it's not uncommon.